One-third of the employees at a workplace sign a card or petition that states their desire to be represented by a certain union, those cards or petitions are then turned into the National Labor Relations Board office nearest you by hand or mail (there’s one in Tampa).

The NLRB will then request a current payroll list from the employer to verify that 33 percent of the employees have signed, then the NLRB conducts a secret ballot election at the workplace or by mail. The employer never is shown the cards, nor told who signed them.

If 50 percent plus one vote “Yes” for a union, the employer by law must “negotiate in good faith in all respect to wages and working conditions.”

Once a contract is reached, employees vote again to approve or reject the contract.

Then you have a union contract, which often includes a pension plan, health insurance, higher wages, paid sick and leave time, seniority as it applies to scheduling, days off and being made to work holidays, a grievance process and arbitration in regards to discipline and being terminated, among other benefits.

Employees can do this on their own, they do not need a major union to represent them if they feel capable of representing themselves.

They are not required to pay dues in a right-to-work state, which Florida is.

John Beatty, Atlantic Beach

DIVERSITY

PREFER COMPETENCE

When your house is on fire do you want the most competent or most diverse people coming to put out the fire in your home?

When you go to the doctor because of an illness, do you want the most competent doctor or the doctor chosen because of diversity requirements?

When you go to school or college, do you want the most competent teachers or do you want the teacher that was chosen in order to comply with the diversity requirements?

Do you want someone that will teach his or her personal feelings rather than the real historical facts?

When you elect officials, do you want them to represent the majority of the people or do you want someone that overrepresents some minority?

Do you want someone who will write laws that overrepresent the minority that provides an advantage for the minority over the majority?

Do you want the most competent person or the person chosen because of some diversity requirement?

The only reason to choose the less competent person is because he or she is not the most qualified but they can represent the less qualified diverse people.

In other words, the winner of the Super Bowl should not be the team that plays the best football, not the one with the most diverse roster.

Does this make sense? Will this “Make America Great Again”?

The best choice obviously is to provide and enforce equal opportunity for everyone.

James Scheiman, Jacksonville

MONUMENTS

BUILD MORE

City Council President Anna Lopez Brosche has opened up a can of worms. She let her emotions get the best of her.

Instead of talking to the full City Council and the mayor, she made a bold statement of wanting all the Confederate monuments removed from public property.

Brosche did not realize that 75
percent of Jacksonville residents don’t want the monuments removed. Her political career could be over if she continues down
this path.

And I think she knows it now.

All City Council members who follow her down this path could be in political trouble as well, and I believe they know it, except for the ones whose constituents favor this agenda.

Brosche needs to walk back her statement and compromise by putting up a monument or monuments to famous African- Americans from Jacksonville in Hemming Park to give it more diversity. This should have been done a long time ago.

This Week's Circulars

More

I’m writing this to Shad Khan — who came to the United States as an immigrant and has enjoyed success in this great nation — and the athletes he employs on that pathetic team he owns called the Jacksonville Jaguars: